


Payment For Your Pride

by goth_on_ham



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Non-Consensual Spanking, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:37:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9493841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goth_on_ham/pseuds/goth_on_ham
Summary: A two part story where Ed and Oswald are in a relationship and that relationship is a little kinky. Gabe comes across something in Ed’s desk, Ed ends up with a sore ass, and Oswald tells a lie that lands him in trouble with his boyfriend.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is pure self-indulgence.

“It must be somewhere. Keep looking.” 

“I can’t find it, boss.”

“Ugh. Where’s Ed when you need him? He’d be able to-“

Oswald froze. Gabe had found something  _very_ different from the file of incriminating photos that they were looking for. Although what he had found was also compromising, just not to the same person. 

“What’s this?” The larger man asked, holding up a rather unambiguous wooden paddle. Oswald couldn’t lie and say it was a chopping board. It had holes drilled into it. 

“U-Uh,” He had turned red. “I can explain…”

He took a step forwards and snatched it out of his subordinate’s hand, placing it clumsily back into the desk drawer.   “It’s Ed. Ever since he’s gotten out of Arkham, well… He hasn’t been the same.” Gabe’s expression didn’t change, not even slightly, and Oswald felt pressed to continue with his explanation. “He uh, he needs a firm hand.”

“A firm hand?”

Oswald swallowed deeply. He nodded. 

He tried to banish memories of Ed playfully (and sometimes not so playfully) pulling him over his lap to receive some ‘attention’ from that implement. They were not helping him keep his cool.

“So you and he-“   
  
“Look, it’s uh, complicated. We shouldn’t talk about it. It’ll only embarrass Ed. It’s not a job I  _enjoy_ , but someone has to do it.” Oswald began shuffling the papers on Ed’s desk around, desperately trying to push Gabe into looking for the file again. 

“Huh. Okay then, boss.” Gabe began to look again, but then paused after a few moments. “Wait… So sometimes you have to-“

“ _Gabe_!” Oswald exclaimed, his voice spiking sharply in both volume and pitch. 

“Yeah, boss?”  
  
  “Just… Be quiet. We’ve got to find those photographs.”

—

“Why is my desk such a mess?” Ed asked, clearly irritated. He began to sort the piles of papers that had been spread about over the surface of the desk into their proper order again. 

“Sorry, Mr Nygma. Me and the boss were looking for something.” It was kind of funny to imagine Oswald giving Ed a paddling. Gabe had always thought that Ed acted like he was the one in charge, even though Oswald was the Mayor. 

“I don’t see why that prevented you from tidying things up afterwards.” Ed muttered derisively. 

“The boss was in a hurry.”

“I didn’t mean  _him_.” He rolled his eyes, neatening up the last stack of papers and then regarded Gabe as if he was a dog that had just soiled the carpet. “I meant you.”

Despite the fact that it was difficult for Gabe to imagine Oswald paddling Ed, he was beginning to see what he meant about Ed needing it from time to time. Now that he thought about it, he could be really rude. He was the new guy, but he acted like he was better than everyone else. Even though Gabe had been working for Oswald far longer than he had.

“What was it Oswald was looking for anyway?” Ed asked, moving behind his desk and taking a seat. He had work to be getting on with after all. 

“Just some photos.”

Ed rolled his eyes again. It really confounded him why Oswald tolerated such meatheads around him. True, they had their uses, but there must be grunts that he could hire with at least a hint of intelligence. Ones who could speak like adults instead of overgrown children. Gabe spoke using short, simple words and answered questions in a way that nearly always left out any useful information. 

“Photos of  _what_?” He pressed, the impatience rising in his voice.

“It don’t matter, does it? He found them.” Gabe was growing a little irritated too. He didn’t mind so much when Oswald was rude to him, he was his boss after all, it was to be expected. It was different with Ed, he wasn’t in charge of him. He might be the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, but Gabe wasn’t under Mayor Cobblepot’s payroll, he was under the payroll of the Penguin.

“Excuse me?” The corners of Ed’s lips curved up in an vexed smile. “What was that?”

“You heard me.” 

“Yes, I did.” Ed chuckled and stood up again, taking a few well measured steps so that he was standing directly in front of the larger man. The larger man who could snap him in two if he wanted to, but he was confident of his authority. “It would be smart of you not to speak that way to me again.”

Gabe thought back to his earlier conversation with Oswald again and about the paddle in the desk drawer. Ed was really asking for it, and Oswald wasn’t around to give it to him. He could report it to him later… But Oswald had said he didn’t enjoy doing it. He’d probably thank him if he took that particular job off his hands this time. Oswald was a busy man after all, and while he might not like disciplining the snobby pencil neck, it would be Gabe’s pleasure.

“Of course, I don’t expect you to do what is smart.” Ed smirked, unable to help himself. He had nothing but contempt for men like Gabe. Men who relied on brute strength and had all the sophistication of a particularly ungainly ape. 

“I guess you’re right, Mr Nygma.” 

Ed frowned for a moment. It was an unexpected response. 

Gabe’s large hand grabbed his arm suddenly, and before Ed could get out a word, he was bent roughly over the edge of his desk. The papers he’d carefully reorganised scattered everywhere. 

“What are you doing?!” He demanded, immediately trying to rise up, but Gabe kept him down effortlessly. He twisted Ed’s arm up his back and the slender man gasped at the tight discomfort. “Let me go!”

Gabe opened the desk drawer, retrieving the paddle that he’d found earlier. He hadn’t done this before, but he didn’t think there could be much to it. 

Ed caught sight of the paddle as it was removed from the drawer and panic quickly took its place beside his outrage. “Unhand me this moment! I will have you fired! I will-  _Ah_!”

Gabe smacked him hard on the ass with the wooden implement, the other man’s pants not doing much to shield him from the blow. It hurt, and he was sure Gabe was using it a lot harder on him than he’d ever done to Oswald. 

Gabe was satisfied by that reaction, so he pulled back the paddle and brought it down again with similar force. Ed yelped loudly, his slender frame jolting against the side of the desk at the impact. 

“Stop! Stop it!” He demanded, but the cool arrogance and superiority that had been in his voice beforehand was far gone. He sounded frantic, desperate. The change in Ed’s attitude didn’t convince him to stop, it just convinced Gabe that it was working. 

He wasn’t sure how many swats were appropriate, or how many were usual. He decided that he would just keep going until he thought Ed had had enough. So he continued in earnest, giving Ed swat after swat and making him cry out and squirm desperately in a vain attempt to get away from his punishment. 

“O-Oswald, he’ll… Ow! He’ll k-kill you!  _I’ll_  kill you!  _Ah_!” Ed was trying to threaten him, trying to pull rank. It was useless. Gabe continued undeterred and the heat soon had Ed sobbing in frustration and pain. “Oh god, stop! Stop!” He pleaded, falling to begs when the threats did nothing.

If Gabe had been a more mean spirited person, he might have pointed out that Ed was really making a scene. He’d chopped off people’s fingers, he’d broken people’s legs, and most of them didn’t bawl like Ed was doing. He guessed that Ed wasn’t used to rough treatment. He was a brains guy, and in Gabe’s experience they were nearly always the biggest crybabies. 

“Nah. The boss won’t kill me for this. He’ll probably thank me for taking this job off his hands for once.” Gabe replied casually, slowing the swats to a gradual stop. Ed had gone a bit quiet, but he was still whimpering at each smack, still sniffling. He figured that he’d probably given him enough. He hadn’t realised how surprising his words were to Ed, he didn’t know that they were the reason he had quietened somewhat. 

Ed understood what Gabe believed that paddle was for and his jaw tightened. He was angry, humiliated. But not at this buffoon, at the little fibber who had been the real reason behind this demeaning treatment.

Oh, Oswald would  _pay_  for this.


	2. Chapter 2

“Wow, I can see why you’re not worried about him stepping out of line when you have photos like  _these_  of him.” Barbara remarked, raising her eyebrows high as she looked through them. 

“Exactly. A sharp tug on the leash with these and he’ll do as he’s told.” Oswald agreed, a devious smile on his face. They both chuckled conspiratorially, only to be interrupted when Ed came into the room. 

“Ed!” Oswald lit up at seeing him, having no inkling of the grievance his partner had with him. Not yet. “I was wondering where you’d ran off too. Come join us.”

“I was actually hoping to have a word with you in private, Oswald.” 

Ed sounded serious and his expression gave away nothing. Oswald had the sudden, distinct feeling that he was displeased with him.

“Ed, I’m in the middle of something.” He smiled once more, but a little nervously, “Can’t it wait?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Oswald swallowed deeply. “I see…”

His mind went to the paddle in Ed’s desk drawer. It seemed like no coincidence that the evening after Gabe had found it, Ed had come to him, interrupted a meeting, and insisted on speaking to him with that ‘you’re in trouble’ expression on his face.

Barbara smiled secretly behind the rim of her teacup. She didn’t know what was going on, but she could tell that it was something juicy. 

“Don’t worry about it, Ozzie. I understand.” She stood up to excuse herself. 

“I apologise, Barbara. Perhaps we can finish this discussion tomorrow.” Oswald had kind of been hoping that Barbara would be reluctant to leave. Then he would have been obliged to tell Ed that whatever he wished to ‘discuss’ would have to wait. 

“Of course.” She glanced at Ed, wondering what was on his mind. From Oswald’s squirming, she gathered the little bird had been misbehaving. “Have fun.”   
  
 ‘What does she mean by that?’ Oswald thought with a sharp bitterness. Suspicion and embarrassment ran through him at the suggestion she had some inkling that she was leaving him to a painful fate.

Once Barbara had left, Oswald looked up at Ed from his seat, still smiling nervously and hoping that he would elaborate soon on what it was that he had wished to talk about. He somehow doubted it would be that simple though. Ed had a gift for making him sweat. 

“Oswald, is there something you wish to tell me?” Ed asked him, the clear steadiness of his voice making the smaller man all the more anxious. 

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.” Oswald replied, hoping that his words sounded more convincing to Ed than they did to himself.

“You don’t?”

“No… Should I?” 

The corner of Ed’s mouth twitched slightly in quiet amusement. He was annoyed at Oswald, but he did look incredibly endearing when he was squirming like this. It was probably a little cruel to enjoy it so much, but Ed figured that it was only fair to savour it when Oswald had been the reason for his earlier discomfort. Some would have argued that Ed, not Oswald, had been the reason for it. It had been his rudeness that had provoked Gabe into action after all, but Ed didn’t think of it that way.

“I would think so.”

Oswald wrung his hands together, his eyes moving around the room, trying to convince Ed that he was really thinking hard about what he could  _possibly_  have to confess.

“I will remind you then.” Ed said, after several moments of watching Oswald ‘think’. He beckoned Oswald forward with his finger, and the smaller man felt himself unable to disobey him. He’d dragged his feet a little too much once before and it hadn’t been worth the extra swats it had earned him. 

The pair of them went to the bedroom, whereupon Oswald couldn’t help but notice the same paddle that had previously been in Ed’s desk was now sitting on top of the bedside cabinet. He saw Ed watching his expression and tried to keep his face suitably neutral, although it was too late. He had blown it. 

“I seem to have left it in my desk after last time.” Ed explained as he picked it up, his tone light, as if he was now playing along with Oswald’s ignorance. 

“Oh?” Oswald attempted to sound surprised. Really, he just sounded startled.

“You didn’t know that?”

Oswald bit on his bottom lip, his hands awkwardly wringing at each other again. “No.”

Ed looked unimpressed.

“Come here,” He instructed, taking a seat on the bed, one hand still curled around the handle of the paddle. Oswald looked behind him at the door. He wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t planning on running. 

“May I at least know what I am meant to have done?” He asked. 

“Oswald.” 

When Ed said his name in that low, warning tone, it froze Oswald to the spot and sent shivers that were not entirely unpleasant up and down his spine. His heart hammered in his chest and he felt colour blossom on his cheeks. 

“I told you to come here.”

Oswald finally obeyed and with a single movement, Ed encouraged him over his lap. The familiar weight of him in this position was oddly comforting. It felt as if things were back in their proper order. However, the notable discomfort of sitting down reminded Ed that just earlier that day things had most decidedly  _not_  been in their proper order.

That had actually been part of his reason for choosing the bedroom for this. Their bed was very soft, and he didn’t much like the idea of sitting on anything hard so soon after Gabe had dished out his own brutish and (in Ed’s opinion) undeserved form of discipline. 

“I thought this might encourage your memory.” Ed told him, his arm wrapping around Oswald’s narrow waist. “Has it?”

Oswald felt he no longer had any alternative. It seemed that he had probably left it too late already, but perhaps, if he confessed now… Ed might still be convinced that it had been nothing more than an innocent white lie. Something to preserve his dignity, but it wasn’t vanity. It was important that he keep up his reputation as the powerful, leading man who was steering Gotham back onto the right track. Powerful, leading men did not get spanked.

“I-“ He was finally ready to confess, because he had gotten together a version of the story in his head that he thought made him sound suitably innocent. But he was interrupted by the familiar but startling sting of the paddle being brought down hard onto his rear. “Ah!”

“I’m glad your memory has returned to you, I was growing concerned.” Ed remarked, a hint of amusement in his words. He smacked Oswald again, no where near as hard as Gabe had hit him, but it would still sting. Annoyed though he was, he could never bring himself to properly hurt him. 

“Ow! I admit it, I may have stretched the truth a little to Gabe! But I had no choice, Ed!” He whined, beginning to shift about but Ed was well used to that and kept a firm hold of him. “What would you have had me say? He found it in a drawer and I was put on the spot!”

Ed snorted softly and paused to take down Oswald’s dress pants, his boxers. “What exactly did you tell him?” He asked, his hand briefly running over the  bared skin. It was already slightly pink. Oswald’s paleness always caused his skin to flush remarkably easily. 

“I… I told him that I used it on you.” He admitted, his voice growing a little softer as Ed caressed him. 

Ed didn’t see how that would have encouraged Gabe to use it on _him_. There must be more that Oswald wasn’t telling him. He swatted him again, the sound sharper now that there was no fabric to buffer the impact. Oswald yelped and jumped a bit, Ed tried not to chuckle. 

“What else?” He pressed, punctuating the question with another smack. 

“A-Ah! Uh… I, I don’t think there was anything else…”

“Oswald.” Ed could have rolled his eyes at how unconvincing that sounded. 

He began to settle into a steady rhythm of swats, each one making Oswald yelp and whimper in complaint. It only took about half a dozen for Oswald to plead with him to stop and promise honesty.

“Okay, okay…! I may have… Additionally… Implied that you needed firm handling.” He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his face into his arms. He knew that Ed would not be pleased at that, and that was without the knowledge that Gabe had paddled him.

Oswald was right of course. Ed’s expression darkened and his arm tightened slightly around the smaller man’s waist. “I see.”

“I didn’t think anything would come of it.” He pleaded.

“You mean that you didn’t think I would find out.” Ed corrected. Oswald swallowed guiltily. He couldn’t deny that. “In other words, you traded off my pride for your own.”

Oswald cringed slightly. When phrased like that Ed made it sound so selfish.

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that…” He murmured, not having the courage to sound more definite about his answer.

“I want you to go to Gabe and correct what you told him.” 

“I can’t tell him that you-“ Oswald began, his voice rising quickly in alarm.

“You needn’t tell him that. I simply mean you must tell him that you misspoke. That you  _don’t_ use that on me, and that no one else is to.” 

Oswald supposed that was merciful. However, his face still burned with embarrassment at having to go to Gabe and retract his earlier words. Gabe was loyal and unquestioning, but even he would find it odd.

“Of course… I will do that immediately.” Oswald agreed, nodding his head obediently.

“Not immediately. After your spanking.” Ed told him, not allowing him to budge. He tapped the wooden implement on Oswald’s ass, and Oswald whined again in protest.

“I have a City Council meeting tomorrow morning and then in the afternoon I must-“

“That is unfortunate timing, but I am sure you will manage it. Perhaps you can request softer chairs.” 

Oswald’s shoulders sagged slightly in defeat. “What should I tell Gabe the paddle is for, if I am to say that it is not used on you?”

Ed smirked slightly. His hand tightened its grip around the paddle. “I am sure you will think of something.”

—

“So… It’s not for that?” 

Oswald had been right. Gabe _did_  think it was odd.

Nonetheless he nodded enthusiastically. 

“Then, what is it for?” 

Oswald cringed, unable to meet his henchman’s eyes as he gave the only answer he had been able to come up with. 

“It’s a chopping board.”


End file.
